If you are financially secure enough to have minimal health insurance coverage from your employer, chances are you haven’t been worried about the health care debate that's been ongoing since late July, during which the Senate voted no on the latest GOP repeal and replace bill that would have taken away coverage from millions of Americans.
For those without access to privatized insurance, however, inattention cannot be afforded during the attack on health care rights. Those who are not covered at all or who are covered under the Affordable Care Act are in a state of uncertainty about their healthcare.
While congressional sessions are in a summer slow and President Trump’s plans for the 2017-18 Obamacare enrollment period remain a mystery, it’s unclear whether the 22 million Americans who would’ve lost coverage had repeal bills succeeded will be able to get baseline health coverage under a Trump-manipulated ACA insurance market.
There has been very little chatter since the dramatic "skinny repeal" vote in July. The last few weeks has been radio silence, which leaves many uninsured or underinsured Americans hanging in the balance, waiting for answers.
To recap, the Senate voted on a series of five repeal-and-replace-Obamacare bills throughout July, all of which either failed miserably or were narrowly defeated. First came the American Health Care Act, a notoriously awful House bill that fell flat on its face when it reached the Senate.
This was followed by Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s, R-Kentucky, original recipe Better Care Reconciliation Act, which was so unworkable that it was pulled for revisions and never reached a vote on the floor. Then came Sen. Ted Cruz’s, R-Texas, amended version of this bill, which was defeated. When we thought it couldn’t get any worse, the Obamacare Repeal and Reconciliation Act arrived, which was also defeated on the floor and never specified a replacement strategy.
Finally, we got the Health Care Freedom Act, the most generous of the god-awful bills in its allotment of Medicaid expansion. This bill was defeated with the help of Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, with a final swoop-in by Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona. And we all lived happily ever after, right?
When the American public watched in dismay as the Senate almost passed the Health Care Freedom Act, or “skinny repeal” bill, call-ins to Congress were undoubtedly a show in effective democracy. American constituents expressed their needs to their representatives, and the legislative output — or lack thereof, in this case — reflected those serious requests.
Despite these efforts during the health care attack in the legislature, the true test of success will be how accessible Trump and the executive branch allow government-subsidized health insurance to be. This is done by manipulating the ACA’s open enrollment period for 2018.
So, let’s focus on the Trump administration. According to the New York Times, the executive branch has repeatedly threatened to end billions of dollars in subsidies known as cost-sharing reduction payments to insurance companies in the Obamacare market, although these threats appeared to be just for show. However, without these subsidies, insurance companies could no longer offer discounts to low-income customers who need them.
So far, Trump has already ended contracts totaling around $23 million with two major companies that help the uninsured sign up for coverage. He’s cut the enrollment period in half, from 90 days to 45. Now, Americans will only be able to register for 2018 between Nov. 1 and Dec. 15 of this year. What’s more, health care advocacy groups have been left in the dark on the executive’s procedure for providing enrollment information to Americans, according to the Washington Post.
It’s difficult to assess whether it’s worth enrolling in an ACA plan for 2018 if the fate of your health insurance is in the hands of Donald Trump and dozens of Republican congressmen and congresswomen who don’t believe that health care is a human right. In these next few months, the uninsured will be at risk for having fewer opportunities to enroll in an ACA insurance market growing increasingly dismal. At the bare minimum, the insured should stand by the uninsured in this fight.
jsbourkl@indiana.edu
@jsbourkland
